floru of MiLhigdn. SiiJDv AT Michigan 11 



referring in his diary to botanizing expeditions with "Charlie 

 Wheeler." They had decided to explore " the whole state as far 

 as [they] could do so and to make a catalogue of the plants of 

 the state which should be something more than a mere catalogue, 

 that is, [it was to] include geographical and ecological notes." 

 Ecology was a word not yet in use in America; and only in rare 

 instances were plants and plant societies studied in the light of 

 their physical and biological factors. 



Geology, entomology, and medicine each appealed to him as 

 study subjects. But, most of all, he enjoyed the study of plants 

 and reading the books on botany. A "great variety of strange 

 and beautiful plants and shrubs" were to be found around Hub- 

 bardston and the environs of his father's farm. He brought plants 

 and shrubs from the woods to his mother's flower garden. Years 

 later he recalled his mother's garden in a poem: 



There lilies opened white and creamy wells; 



There daffodil and tulip flaunted gold; 

 Rathe primrose, crocus, hyacinth, made bold ; 



There larkspurs grew with Canterbury bells. 

 Dark peonies where no sweet odor dwells, 



Snow-ball, mock-orange, iris yellow-stoled, 

 June-rose, tall hollyhock, pinks manifold, 



With half a hundred more fond memory tells. 



And there the boy each spring and summer saw 



The lithe shoots push from beds of warm brown earth, 



Then leaf and flower appear, by some fixed law; 

 And wondered o'er it all, as seasons rolled — 



The yearly miracle, the strange new birth — 

 And wonders yet the more, now he is old.i° 



When the family moved to Michigan, the central parts of the 

 state were covered with huge forests of white pine. Many of the 

 pines were more than one hundred feet high and had trunks of 

 three to four feet in diameter. Some towered one hundred and 

 thirty to one hundred and forty feet and bore diameters of five to 

 six feet. The lumbering industry already had started to devastate 

 wude areas of valuable white pine forests. Yet many a summer 

 day he roamed the forests, searching for the dainty, creeping, twin- 

 flowered Linnaea, Clintonia, or orchids. Often he visited the 

 chestnut and beech woods, climbed high into their branches, bare 



"April 6, 1913. 



